Age/gender and sinonasal symptoms relationship in children and adolescents with bronchial asthma

There is a lack of information about the relationship between the age and gender and the nasal and sinonasal symptoms in patients with combined bronchial asthma (BA) and allergic rhinosinusitis (ARS) in childhood and adolescence in current bibliographical data. The purpose of this research was to study the influence of age and gender factors on nasal and sinonasal symptoms in children and adolescents with combined asthma, allergic rhinitis (AR) and/or ARS. Materials and methods used: a single-center observational cross-sectional pilot study of patients with atopic asthma aged 5 to 17 y/o was performed, median age 12.0 [9.0; 15.0] years, 73.1% (201/275) boys, in the Nizhny Novgorod City Children’s Clinical Hospital No. 1 (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia) in 2017-2023. All children underwent spirometric studies and assessment of nasal and sinonasal symptoms using the TNSS (Total Symptom Nasal Score) and SNOT-22 (SynoNasal Outcome Test-22) questionnaires. The patients were divided into 3 age groups: G1 of 90 aged 5 to 9 y/o, G2 of 111 aged 10 to 14 y/o, and G3 of 74 aged 15 to 17 y/o. Results: the severity of nasal symptoms (TNSS) in patients with asthma increased statistically significantly as their age increased, both in common sample and in the samples of boys and girls (p=0.005, p=0.020, p=0.037, respectively). Sinonasal symptoms (assessed with SNOT-22) increased statistically significantly as patients grew older in the sample of girls (p=0.002) and did not have statistically significant differences at different age groups in boys (p=0.414). Conclusion: understanding the role that gender factors play in the formation and course of AR and ARS in patients with asthma in childhood and adolescence can contribute to the development of new directions for personalized management of these patients taking into account their gender and age.